Gilbert and Matthew
by Sweet Jelly Hearts
Summary: I didn't plan on falling in love with him when we were both still so young, but it just... happened.


There's a little indent in the wall in the corner of the classroom where we used to sit, where the short bookshelves didn't quite meet and the beanbags were always leaking foam pellets. We would sit together and stumble over the biggest sentences we could find in our chapter books out loud to each other during recess, not because we didn't want to go outside, but because you couldn't, and I was okay with that. You liked the Hardy Boys and Goosebumps; I liked The Magic Tree House and The Boxcar Children. I wore my glasses all the time, but you only wore yours while you were reading with me. You thought they made you look silly; I thought they made you look smart. I remember you would squint at the words on grammar assignments in class because you didn't want to wear your glasses in front of anyone but me. That was all right, though; we would work on homework during recess, too.

We would talk and giggle and race to see who could finish the most chapters from their book before recess ended. Sometimes we would trade books, but I didn't like your Goosebumps books because they made me squeamish. Our teacher never minded us staying inside. She thought it was nice that you had a friend like me who would stay inside with you even when all of the other kids were playing outside. Sometimes it was cloudy enough that the sun wouldn't hurt your skin and the nurse said it would be okay for you to go out, just so long as you were extra careful and came right back in as soon as you saw that the sun might come out because otherwise you would get burned and that hurts and is not good at all because band-aids and get better kisses don't work very well on sunburns.

You didn't like it when the other kids teased you, and neither did I. Sometimes they would make fun of you because of your hair, or your skin, or your eyes-especially your eyes. They said you looked creepy, but I thought you looked perfectly nice to me. I would tell you to ignore them, because my parents always told me that if you don't let the bullies get to you then they'll get bored and bother someone else, but I learned that that's not true at all.

I know you liked to run around outside, but I think you were happier staying in with me on the many sunny days.

We would have sleepovers, and my brother would be annoying, but sometimes he would be at a friend's house at the same time you were at my house, and we could watch cartoons and play Super Nintendo on the tiny TV in the loft for hours until my mom said it was time for us to go to bed. We wouldn't go to sleep right away, of course, because that would be boring. We would whisper secrets to each other as if we were conspiring against the world, and I felt in those moments that we were the best of friends because we could trust each other not to tell about our most embarrassing moments or that one time you lied to your grandpa about drawing on the walls or when I tattled on my brother for breaking my mom's favorite vase when he was playing with a baseball in the house. We would slowly doze off, muffled laughter and secrets on our lips as we fought to keep our eyes open. And in the morning we would wake up and run downstairs for breakfast and try to play together as much as possible before your grandpa had to pick you up to go home.

And when I went back to school after weekends like that, I felt like all of the other kids didn't know what they were missing when it came to you, because you were definitely the nicest, funnest, coolest kid in the whole grade, and nobody could tell me different because they'd be wrong.

Summer break was quickly approaching, though, and while it would be fun to have that big break off of school, I also knew that we didn't get to see each other as much without school to go to. We sat in our corner more than ever, even on cloudy days when you were allowed to go outside for recess. You told me that all the kids who went outside were a bunch of meanies who were boring to play with, anyway, and that was a good enough explanation for me. We had gotten so good at reading by that time that we could go through whole chapter books in only one recess. We still raced and laughed at the funny parts, and sometimes you would gross me out by reading pages from your Goosebumps books.

You were the one who suggested we carve our names into the wall behind the bookshelves on the last day of school. I don't really know why you did it. You had your very own pair of safety scissors, and while the teacher wasn't looking you pushed the shelf aside and quickly scratched our names into the plaster.

You told me you loved me for the first time that day. I said that was weird, but you said it was okay because you didn't like me like a girl likes a boy because girls have cooties. I said that if you really loved me then you had to kiss me because that's what my parents said people who loved each other did. And so you really did-right on the cheek-and it made me really happy. I remember you looked away like you were bashful, and your face was red like you had gotten a sunburn, but I knew that wasn't it. You pushed the bookshelf back so that it covered our names, but you told me to never forget they were back there. I pinkie-promised.

It's funny how that day it felt like we would never see each other again. A few weeks of summer feels like an eternity to a kid. But sure enough, we were together the next year, and the year after that, and the year after that...

The wall has since been painted over several times, but if you run your hand over just the right place, you can feel the little grooves of the names you carved:

GILBERT and MATTHEW

* * *

_A/N: So sorry for falling off of the face of the Earth for a while there. No real excuse except I've been feeling strangely protective of my stories lately and haven't been publishing. Been working on original projects, too, and didn't feel like publishing them in case I wanted to submit to contests, magazines, etc. The recent realization that scholarships won't touch previously published work has made me hold back._

_Might make a Fictionpress account to post original drabbles and such that have no chance of getting published elsewhere. It'll be nice to get more immediate feedback on my original stuff as well._

_~Jel_


End file.
